WASHINGTON -- D.C. United can point to a host of extenuating circumstances surrounding their 3-1 SuperLiga loss to Houston Dynamo at RFK Stadium on Saturday night: a nasty injury bug, the urgent need to rest tired regulars like Jaime Moreno and the long odds on the situation that had to transpire for them to advance into the tournament's knockout rounds.
Yet in the end, the Black-and-Red failed to mind a fundamental tenet of the game and were duly punished by the defending MLS Cup champions. United's poor man-marking on two first-half set pieces allowed Houston dead-ball specialist Brad Davis to set up teammates Ricardo Clark and Bobby Boswell for close-range headers, pushing United into an early -- and in the end, insurmountable -- hole for the third consecutive match.
"It's just personal responsibility, you know? If you've got a man, don't let him score," said D.C. defender Marc Burch. "But I thought we played good soccer, and for most of the game I thought we played pretty good defense. So it was just a couple of breakdowns."
Having blasted his team for their halfheartedness in Tuesday's underwhelming 3-2 loss to Atlante, a pensive Tom Soehn was more measured in his evaluation of United's latest setback.
"I think as far as injecting some new guys, we had to look into the future and see how important it was to get some guys rest," said the D.C. head coach. "On the competitive side, that part was better. And we talked about their danger on set pieces -- I thought we controlled a lot of the first half and gave away two set pieces [where] we just let our marks go. We didn't compete on those, so that's pretty discouraging."
While Ryan Cordeiro's inexperience was perhaps to blame for allowing Clark to beat him to Davis' 12th-minute corner kick, it was surely fatigue that turned Devon McTavish's feet to lead as he tracked former teammate Bobby Boswell on a right-wing free kick 16 minutes later, and at the moment those are the twin plagues stalking the Black-and-Red. The rigors of a crowded schedule gave Soehn little choice but to call on youngsters and reserves, especially with a rescheduled league match against Dynamo just 72 hours away.
"It's been taxing," said the second-year boss. "We've been in a rough stretch and through the first part of the season and this last part, we've had a lot of injuries. So a lot of guys are putting in a lot of minutes and over the long haul, it wears you down. So we had to evaluate the approach to this game and hopefully we got some guys some needed rest [for] when we get back to work on Tuesday. That's a very important game for us."
Soehn had every reason to envy the depth available to his Dynamo counterpart. Dominic Kinnear was able to field a strong first XI and still bring stalwarts like Stuart Holden and Brian Ching off the bench to secure the result in the second half, when the midsummer mugginess further drained United's tired legs and Soehn pulled off Fred, Clyde Simms and Luciano Emilio.
"Yeah, you know, you take some of the guys who've logged the majority of the minutes out of the game, and it's tough," said Bryan Namoff. "You get guys who, some are inexperienced and haven't added too much to the team as of yet. It's just a difficult situation all around, and you add the heat and humidity into a season where leading up to this month, there's been a lot of added games."
But even as United look to strike back with a stronger lineup and more thorough performance in Tuesday's game, a makeup of the June 4 clash at RFK that was washed out by lightning and torrential rain, the same fundamentals will have to be addressed.
"Going into tonight, we knew it was a long shot, but still a good possibility," said Clyde Simms, referring to his team's faint hopes in SuperLiga, "and we wanted to at least put some fear into their eyes for Tuesday, which is a big game for us. We know they're a team that survives on set pieces, and we'll have to do something to fix that before Tuesday."
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